This invention related to agitators for mixing liquid with gas, and while the invention is subject to a wide range of applications, a preferred embodiment of the invention will be particularly described as applied to an improved agitator for mixing liquid with a gas.
A conventional system for mixing a gas with a liquid involves supplying gas to an input of a rotating liquid agitator. This is insufficient because output of the agitator is limited by the presence of gas in its input, as was fully discussed in the prior U.S. Stanton, Jr., et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,207,275, issued June 10, 1980. The system according this prior patent provides an improvement that prevents the mixing of gas with the input to the impeller by ejecting the gas upwardly through orifices in a sparge ring at the periphery of an agitator. It is desirable in this type of a system to keep the system running as continuously as possible in order to prevent the possibility of settling solids from obstructing the orifices in the sparge ring.
An object of the present invention is to provide agitators for mixing liquid with gas which substantially obviate one or more of the limitations and disadvantages of the described prior art systems.
Another object of the present invention is to segregate input and output areas of an agitator for facilitating mixing of the agitator output with a gas, while limiting gas input to the agitator.
Another object of the present invention is to improve the efficiency, and thus reduce the cost of operation, of systems for mixing a gas with a liquid.
Other objects, purposes and characteristic features of the present invention, will be in part obvious from the accompanying drawings, and in part pointed out as the description of the invention progresses.